"We could not be more pleased or proud," said Matt Lauer, before he introduced several minutes of Guthrie footage, showing her reporting, laughing, goofing around with a funny hat on, perching on a rope swing with her two nieces, her mom Nancy Guthrie saying she always "had a loud mouth," Savannah recalling that her dad died when she was 16, and Al Roker and Brian Williams getting her name wrong and calling her "Samantha."

She loves "to write more than anything," she said. She loves to sing and play guitar. Natalie Morales described her as a "classic klutz." And Lauer teased her about a book she loved growing up titled Dreams Can Come True.

"It's always scary to start a new job, but I'm just looking forward to getting to know everybody a little bit better," Guthrie said, laughing along through all the ribbing.